The Sucker M.C. Jive Turkeys

The Sucker M.C. Jive Turkeys started as a recording experiment back in 1999. Bass player Rafael Eaton had a couple of songs he wanted to see if he could record and his friend with a four-track recorder, Josh Gross, wanted to see if he could learn to play drums.

The duo hammered out five songs. Since they were all instrumental, lacking lyrics to title them, the songs were given completely absurdly macabre names so they wouldn’t have to be identified by describing what they sounded like.

The band recruited a friend, Joe Perez to play guitar on the E.P. They made a total of four copies of the finished product. One for each member of the band, and one for national touring act, Nerf Herder, who they had covered on the recording and then met randomly at a show.

The band went their separate ways.

But several years later in 2002, Josh and Rafael ran into one another on the streets of Portland, Oregon and decided to try jamming again. They brought back the old songs and wrote a few more, adding a new guitarist, Daniel Medders and keyboardist Amanda Spring, to the lineup. They also recruited a new drummer, Dan Hatcher, and Josh shifted to performing the lead vocals he had put on the band’s recordings.

Their name, The Sucker M.C. Jive Turkeys, was Josh and Rafa’s preferred insult over post-practice games of pool.

The band played gigs around Portland for several months with much success. But eventually, other musical commitments won out. Amanda left to form indie-rock group, Point Juncture WA and the Dans formed a speed-metal group, The Good Robot Us’s. Josh eventually would go on to form the Portland exclusive confusion rock duo, Cark.